


The Most Bizarre Three Years of Leonard McCoy’s Life

by mithrel



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Backstory, Blanket Permission, Character Study, Gen, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-17
Updated: 2009-05-17
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:05:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithrel/pseuds/mithrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically the movie retold from McCoy’s POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Bizarre Three Years of Leonard McCoy’s Life

He’s enlisted in Starfleet. Clearly temporary insanity brought on by emotional trauma and upheaval.

He’s too old to take more classes, not to mention the whole “death lurking around every nebula” factor. He’s thirty-one, divorced, and miserable.

He’d met Jocelyn while he was still in med-school, and fallen instantly in love. Two years later, they’d married. He was doing his residency at the time, and she was understanding of the fact that he was always away, and was exhausted when he did come home.

He soon set up with a small private practice, and they’d had Joanna, and things had been fine, for a while. Except he’d get caught up in work, Jocelyn would be angry, he’d promise to spend more time at home, and she’d forgive him. Until the next time.

When Joanna was five, she told him she wanted a divorce. “I never see you anyway. There’s no point in being married to you.”

“Jocelyn, I’m sorry! We can work this out.”

“No, Leonard. You’ve had five years to work it out. You've shown all too clearly where your priorities are. I want a divorce.”

And she’d hired what was apparently the best lawyer in Georgia, and taken his ass to the cleaners. She had full custody, and he was going to be paying alimony for the rest of his natural-born life.

He’d left the practice, and gotten the hell out of Georgia. He’d wandered for a few months, and somehow ended up in Hicksville, Iowa, where he’d got the bright idea to enlist in Starfleet and get the hell away from anything that reminded him of Jocelyn.

It wasn’t until he was on the shuttle to the Academy that the “Star” portion of “Starfleet” had registered, and he’d had the biggest “oh shit” moment since he’d misremembered the time of his virology final and showed up a half-hour late.

At that point he’d had a panic attack, and would probably have demanded they turn the ship around, except he’d met Jim Kirk. The kid was cocky as hell, and easy enough to talk to that he ended up telling him practically his entire life story, and before he knew it, they were in San Francisco.

“So, a Starfleet doctor who’s petrified to fly,” Jim had remarked. “This should be interesting.”

“Go to hell,” McCoy told him, privately wondering if he’d survive the next four years, and what he’d do if he did.

***

He already knew most of the things he needed to, so apart from brushing up on the more exotic alien diseases, he doesn’t have much to do. Oh, apart from learning to treat plasma and coolant burns, the effects of disruptor and phaser fire, and decompression sickness. Hypoxia and radiation poisoning he already knows how to treat, but the courses he’s taking don’t make him any more sanguine about shipping out.

He doesn’t expect to see Jim Kirk again, but three weeks after he’d started taking classes, his door buzzes.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Hi, Bones,” Jim says. At least he has the grace to sound sheepish.

“Did you know someone’s kicked twelve kinds o’ shit outta you?”

Jim Kirk grins at him, the same cocksure, “gimme-all-you-can-throw-at-me” grin he’d seen before. “You should see the other guy.”

“What _happened?_ ”

“I had an argument with an upperclassman.”

“Oh? And just who started this ‘argument’?”

Jim shrugs. “He insulted me.”

“So you punched him.” It’s not a question.

“I couldn’t let him get away with that.”

McCoy rolls his eyes. “So why come here?”

Jim looks uncomfortable for the first time. “They said if I got in another fight they’d suspend me.”

Figures. Kid’s been here three weeks and already he’s got a reputation as a troublemaker. “So you want me to patch you up, is that it?”

“Could you?” Jim looks at him pleadingly.

“All right, all right, turn off the puppy eyes, Jesus!”

Jim grins. “Thanks, Bones.”

“And I suppose you don’t want me to mention it to anyone.”

“That’d be good.”

McCoy rolls his eyes again, and fixes the two black eyes, bloody nose, bruised fists and innumerable small cuts the kid had managed to acquire in his “argument.”

“Bones, you’re a lifesaver!”

“Whatever. You _owe_ me, kid. Behave, or next time I’ll report you!”

“Yessir.” Jim grins at him as he says it, and he shoves him toward the door. “Now scram, I’ve got things to do!”

***

He passes all his classes, and Jim manages to stay mostly out of trouble, until he takes the Kobayashi Maru.

“I’m taking the test again.”

“You gotta be kidding me!” He’s already taken it twice.

“Yeah, tomorrow morning, and I want you there.”

“You know, I’ve got better things to do than watch you embarrass yourself for a third time. I’m a doctor, Jim. I’m busy!” He shouldn’t be surprised. Jim’s never known how to quit when he’s ahead. Or behind. Or at any other time, for that matter.

“Bones, it doesn’t bother you that no one’s ever passed the test?” Great. He knows that tone.

He tries to reason with him anyway. “Jim, it’s the Kobayashi Maru. _No one_ passes the test, and no one goes back for seconds, let alone thirds!”

He doesn’t listen, of course, and Bones shows up at the testing arena, although why, he has no clue.

And Jim beats it. The kid actually beats the goddamn no-win scenario. And then gets his ass called on the carpet.

He’d probably have been kicked out, except for the distress call from Vulcan. As he heads toward the shuttle to take him to his posting, his stomach’s in knots. He hadn’t expected to go out for another year, and had been hoping for a posting on a space station, where at least he wouldn’t _know_ he was in space unless he got near a viewport.

Luckily, he’s friends with Jim Kirk. Smuggling him aboard the shuttle occupies enough of his attention that he isn’t focusing on the fact that there’s no air outside the walls.

And then Jim reacts to the vaccine, and rushes off despite McCoy telling him to sit the hell down.

And then they arrive at Vulcan, and he can’t think about the fact that he’s in space anymore, despite the fact that the ship’s rocking around him, because he’s got patients to treat. He cauterizes bleeding limbs, sucks fluid out of lungs, and tries to keep people from dying of burns to sixty percent of their bodies. And then Doctor Puri comes in, with a gaping wound in his chest where a pylon punctured it, and suddenly he’s Chief Medical Officer, but no time to think about that, because casualties are still pouring in.

He doesn’t even realize Vulcan’s gone until things have calmed down and he’s treating the survivors Spock beamed aboard. After he’s dealt with their shock and minor traumas, he goes to find Spock.

He’s on the bridge, of course, having left his father and the others in the medical bay. It isn’t the best place for this conversation, and he probably shouldn’t even bring it up, since he’s no shrink, but the man has just lost his _planet_.

“You OK?”

“I am perfectly fine, Dr. McCoy.”

Bullshit. But he’s not gonna force the issue in front of the crew. Spock’s Captain, after all. “Fine. Just checking.”

“I commend you on your thoroughness, Doctor.”

***

So, Vulcan’s gone, the maniac who destroyed it is heading for Earth, and Spock’s going to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet.

He’s about to tell him just what he thinks of that, but Jim beats him to it. Spock calls security to restrain him, but he throws them off. Then Spock does something with his fingers on Jim’s neck and he’s collapsing to the floor.

“Get him off this ship.”

Off the _ship?_ What the hell is wrong with the man? He should confine him to quarters, or at most, in the brig, not maroon him on some goddamned planet in the middle of nowhere.

So, when Spock “acknowledges his difficulties,” he commits insubordination, and tells him he’s insane.

And the bastard is _sarcastic_ at him. He didn’t know Vulcans could be sarcastic, but he was. “‘Roaming the corridors weeping’ my ass!” he mutters as he stalks back to the medical bay.

And then Jim’s back, having somehow beamed aboard the ship _while it was at warp_ , bringing with him a lunatic who replaces the engineer who got himself incinerated. He does the one thing he’s best at–provoking people–and nearly gets himself killed in the process.

So Jim’s Captain, and they’re headed for Earth. Jim and Spock _both_ beam aboard Nero’s ship, and _something_ must have happened over there, because when it’s all over, the Earth has been saved and they’ve all been decorated to within an inch of their lives, he takes Spock on as First Officer.

“What happened?” he asks Jim later, when they’re about to go off-shift.

“With what?”

“With _him!_ ” he jabs a thumb at the place where Spock had been standing all shift. “I would think he’s the last person you’d want as First Officer!”

“Let’s just say I got some good advice.”

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"I got a glimpse of the future," he says, smirking.

Oh, well. That clears _everything_ up. "Did I ever tell you, _Captain,_ " he inquires, with an inflection that Uhura would envy, "that you're an unbelievable asshole sometimes?"

"You may have mentioned it once or twice, yeah," Kirk says, and grins at him.

He grins back. Whatever else might happen in the next five years, they're sure as hell not gonna be boring.


End file.
